It is well known that medical resonance imaging (MRI) devices have excellent soft tissue resolution and generate minimal radiation hazard. Because of these advantages MRI—guided robotic-based minimally invasive surgery has become an important surgical tool.
There are a number of surgical robots currently in use but not all are compatible with an MRI. For example the Intuitive Surgical robot called the da Vinci™ is not compatible with an MRI. In contrast the Innomotion robot arm, the NeuroArm robot, and the MRI-P robot are all MRI-compatible. However, even those robots which are MR compatible, may not be able to be operated during scanning.
The main reasons that the robots have not been widely used in the MRI environment are MRI incompatibility, limitations of the real-time intra-operative imaging, space constraints, and lack of compatible modular surgical tools.